


Why, Hello

by epithetta



Category: Torchwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 07:49:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/619745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epithetta/pseuds/epithetta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sluicing through the water it goes, snared by a net, dragged by the twined ropes, rough and sturdy as the interlaced fingers of a fisherman. Travelling in this manner is a rocking motion, like dripping water on the cheek of a sleeping person, forcing them to turn over onto their side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why, Hello

**Author's Note:**

> Written utilising the writerinadrawer prompt 4.2: Someone is woken from their sleep by a strange or unexpected sound. Include: Two words in any foreign language(s). Thanks to cruentum for the beta sparkles.

Darkness looks like licorice rivers, smells like the absence of clean, the absence of dirt. It tastes like wet-dry. It's not even darkness, where light would refuse to show and blinking creates a splash of brightness behind the eyelids. It's the unpeeling of egg yolk in a shell. It's the blanketed soundless explosion of a ship in space.

Sluicing through the water it goes, snared by a net, dragged by the twined ropes, rough and sturdy as the interlaced fingers of a fisherman. Travelling in this manner is a rocking motion, like dripping water on the cheek of a sleeping person, forcing them to turn over onto their side.

The sudden scrape on the surface, wire on brushed steel, metal-grinding drills, snaps it into being, a switch thrown, a reverberation that runs from wrist to fingertips. A small hum starts, unheard, a machine looking for a generator, a vacuum searching for a suction. The mewling is drowned out by other noise. 

"Well, it certainly isn't going to win any fashion contests."

"Nonsense, Jack. I'm sure it was the height of fashion back in the day."

"What day? Fifteen sixty-three?"

"More like twelve sixty-three, actually."

"Right. I don't see it going down the runway in Milan."

"You obviously haven't seen _haute couture_ shows in Paris recently, then."

"Suzie, the man wears braces and a belt, he hasn't seen—"

"Owen, might I remind you that I sign your paycheques?"

"It's a sign of how behind the times you are that you forgot we use direct deposit."

"Zip it. Suzie, is that thing clean yet?"

The scraping ceases and there is movement for the first time in years, in decades, in forevers. The sensors all come online when a hand slips inside it.

"Clean as a whistle, Jack. Fits like a glove."

_Ah._


End file.
